Igor Pokrajac eyes bonus for UFC on FUEL TV 3

FAIRFAX, Va. – At the UFC’s Dec. 10 show in Toronto, Igor Pokrajac thought he had his first big bonus in the bag.

He destroyed Krzysztof Soszynski in 35 seconds, surely headed for UFC 140’s “Knockout of the Night” award. Then Chan Sung Jung stepped into the cage and knocked out Mark Hominick in seven seconds.

Pokrajac (24-8 MMA, 3-3 UFC) faces Fabio Maldonado (18-4 MMA, 1-1 UFC) in a light-heavyweight bout on Tuesday’s UFC on FUEL TV 3 card. But guess who fights in the main event? Yes, it’s the bonus-collecting Jung once again, who this past year won not only the knockout award for the December event, but also pulled off a rarely seen grappling hold called a twister eight months earlier to lock up “Submission of the Year” honors from several news outlets.

So Pokrajac wants a little favor: Whatever he does against Maldonado, Jung should do the opposite.

“I even told Chan Sung: This time, you do your twister,” Pokrajac said. “This time, you leave me ‘Fight of the Night’ or ‘Knockout of the Night.'”

Pokrajac isn’t a complainer. But he could certainly use the money.

“I’m not paid as much as top guys in the UFC,” he said. “The cost of training and everything is very expensive. It would be a good financial injection to my camp.”

At least Pokrajac has been picking up win bonuses. He admits he needed some time to adjust to the UFC after a long career in Europe. Pokrajac made his UFC debut in September 2009 by dropping a unanimous decision to Vladimir Matyushenko.

“Against Matyushenko, I was lost,” Pokrajac said. “I learned a lot of things from that fight.”

He followed that bout with a third-round knockout loss to James Te Huna. Since then, he has won three of four, with all three wins in the first round. Even a layoff due to trouble with his pancreas couldn’t stop his momentum.

“From fight to fight, a fighter needs to go up in every aspect,” Pokrajac said. “The most important thing is experience. Each fight for me is a new thing. From each fight, I learn something new.”

Pokrajac was both a beneficiary and a victim of some reshuffling in the UFC on FUEL TV 3 lineup. He replaced Brandon Vera on the card and drew an appealing matchup with Thiago Silva. Then Silva was pulled to replace the injured Antonio Rogerio Nogueira in the UFC’s April visit to Sweden, and Pokrajac was reset to face Maldonado. Tuesday’s bout takes place at Fairfax, Va.’s Patriot Center and airs on the FUEL TV main card.

Maldonado’s a better boxer than Silva, Pokrajac said. But the Croatian would like to climb up and face one of the many ex-champions floating around the 205-pound class.

“When you fight with an ex-UFC champion, that puts you in directly for a title shot,” Pokrajac said.